We'd been almost rich;
there was plenty, but my father wanted to take advantage of the
growth of the town; he wanted to be richer, but instead--well,
just about the time your father finished building next door we
found we hadn't anything. People say that, sometimes, meaning
that they haven't anything in comparison with other people of their
own kind, but we really hadn't anything--we hadn't anything at all,
Bibbs! And we couldn't DO anything. You might wonder why I didn't
'try to be a stenographer'--and I wonder myself why, when a family
loses its money, people always say the daughters 'ought to go and
be stenographers.' It's curious!--as if a wave of the hand made
you into a stenographer. No, I'd been raised to be either married
comfortably or a well-to-do old maid, if I chose not to marry.
The poverty came on slowly, Bibbs, but at last it was all there--
and I didn't know how to be a stenographer. I didn't know how to
be anything except a well-to-do old maid or somebody's wife--and
I couldn't be a well-to-do old maid. Then, Bibbs, I did what I'd
been raised to know how to do. I went out to be fascinating and be
married. I did it openly, at least, and with a kind of decent
honesty.
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